Android, meet Instagram: The photo app you’ve been waiting for

It’s finally here: Instagram is officially available for Android. After a long and often tortured wait, one of the most popular applications is now up for grabs in the Google Play store. While it’s good news for Android users, it’s greater news for Instagram. The platform has surpassed 30 million registered users and Android’s 500 million activations means that that number is about to skyrocket.

“We’ve been working tirelessly to make this new Android app a first-class mobile photo-sharing experience,” said Instagram. “We’ve been meticulous about translating the Instagram experience to the Android platform. The Android app offers an extremely familiar Instagram experience when compared to the iOS app. You’ll find all the same exact filters and community as our iOS version.”

As you might imagine, the app’s UI (seen above on our Galaxy Nexus) looks nearly identical to the original that we’ve come to know and love — the more than 430,000 Android users on the waiting list for the app should be happy about.

In all the revelry, it’s easy to forget about the bigger picture – which is that Instagram could easily become much more than a smartphone app. Just think about those numbers for a second and put them into perspective:

Instagram has more than 30 million registered users.

430K+ Android users are going to download the app.

Its original release was in October of 2010 – less than two years ago.

So that’s (assumingly) nearly 30.5 million users in less than two years. To offer scale, Facebook had 7 million users by mid-2006, approximately two years after it launched. Of course, it was limited to college students at the time and was a Web-only platform (and one that people hadn’t really wrapped their minds around yet).

But it’s still proof of the unprecedented growth that Instagram is experiencing, and evidence that it’s well on its way to being our first true social-mobile platform – if it wants to be. With great power comes great responsibility, and if Instagram is going to rise to the challenge it would mean heavy investment in its infrastructure. It would have to open up to Windows Phone and BlackBerry (yeah, I said it) and make sure it’s able to support that kind of traffic and use. It also needs to have fully staffed teams for each platform, and be picky about the talent it brings onboard.

Instagram has admitted that focusing solely on iPhone for so long allowed it to do exactly this. “Launching on a single platform allowed us to focus on the product and the user experience. It’s given us the ability to stay small and nimble, and we’ve been able to respond quickly to user feedback.”

Those days could be numbered. This market is Instagram’s for the taking, which is sort of amazing for an app that still retains such a narrow focus and utility.

Twitter has finally delivered on its promise to give users more control over their timeline. It comes in the form of a new button on the main screen that lets you switch between two different kinds of tweets.

Over-the-ear headphones offer top-flight sound, but they're not so easy to take along with you. If you're looking to upgrade your portable sound, check out our favorite in-ear headphones -- there's a model for every user and every budget.

We've rounded up some of the best discounts and sales happening right now, so you can buy yourself (or your loved ones) new bedding without breaking your budget. Trust us when we say these are deals worth losing sleep over.

Need a better phone but don't want to spend a fortune? It's never a bad time to score a new smartphone and save some cash. We rounded up the best smartphone deals available that can save you as much as $800.

Your car and your smartphone are becoming one, yet smartphones branded or co-created by car companies are a problem. We look at the history, some examples of the best and worst, then share hopes for the future.

You don’t have to be Gordon Ramsay to make a killer meal, you just need an easy to follow recipe app. We’ve compiled our 13 favorite cooking apps for Android smartphones and iPhones, including countless recipes to suit any taste.

The best phones of the year are memorable, exciting, and ones we all want to buy. But what about the others? We're not talking about bad phones, we're talking about forgettable phones -- ones that aren't even bad enough to be remembered.

T-Mobile is celebrating the holiday season with a series of deals for customers who want an iPhone XR, Galaxy S9, OnePlus 6T, LG V40, or LG G7. There are terms and conditions to the deals, but they are still worth considering.

Honor will release a smartphone with an in-screen camera in the new year, a trend which is gathering momentum in the industry. Honor said it has cracked the formula, and explains what's special about its All-View Display.

We checked out the best wireless phone chargers to make tangles and uncooperative ports a thing of the past. Whether you have an iPhone or Android, find out which wireless charging pads are worth buying, and how their features compare.